The proposed changes in Social Security for which President Bush has been stubbornly campaigning all year will in all likelihood, despite a chilly public reception, surface as legislation for congressional debate this fall. But the focus of the debate has shifted significantly since the president first brought attention to the subject. And regardless of whether his specific proposals stall or die, one issue now on the table will materialize every time Social Security reform comes up.

When the president introduced the topic of Social Security reform, in his State of the Union speech last winter, his focus was on creating individual Social Security accounts, which would allow participants to divert some money from payroll deductions to private investment. It soon became clear, however, that this would leave the system no more solvent than before. In fact, the federal government would have to borrow trillions of dollars to make up for the lost revenue. This was a problem, given that concern about solvency was the ostensible reason for proposing changes in the first place.

In truth, it is not at all clear that Social Security is in deep trouble; as with many things in economics, one's assessment depends on what projections one uses. But if it is, "trouble" simply means that its projected expenditures exceed its projected revenues. Only two solutions exist: reduce expenditures or increase revenues. Faced with criticism that his original proposal did neither, the president floated another one in a speech last April.

The art of politics is to design a solution that feels painless to all. (Or, as the seventeenth-century French finance minister Jean Baptiste Colbert observed, "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest possible amount of feathers with the smallest possible amount of hissing.") The president's version is called "progressive indexation." This proposed path to solvency has just enough complexity and fine print to make it sound serious—and to make a full analysis of its consequences difficult.

Progressive indexation would change the way Social Security benefits are computed. Benefits are now based on recipients' contributions, but they are indexed to the general level of wages, and rise over time. As the country becomes more prosperous, and wages increase, retirees get more money. Under the president's proposal benefits for most Americans would increasingly be indexed to prices rather than to wages; the higher a worker's income, the greater the proportion pegged to prices. Because prices increase more slowly than wages (sometimes much more slowly), this would mean an enormous reduction in benefits—and enormous savings for the Social Security system. At the same time, the poorest Americans—those with incomes below $25,000—would still receive benefits indexed to wages. In championing a change that would penalize the better-off while protecting the poor, the president managed to cast himself as something of a latter-day Robin Hood.

The first question to ask is, Does progressive indexation really address Social Security's potential problems? In fact it would be hard to think of a worse way to address them.

To begin with, we don't actually know how serious the shortfall is. To assess the system's solvency we must make economic projections far into the future. As the chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers during the 1990s, I had to make projections about where the economy was going to be one, two, or three years ahead; frankly, I often found myself facing a cloudy crystal ball. Forecasting a few years out is hard enough; forecasting seventy-five years out is essentially impossible. Slight changes in life expectancy, immigration, wage growth, and interest rates could have large effects on the solvency of the system.

For instance, if immigration and productivity continue at their current rates, and if real wages move in tandem with productivity, as they have done historically, the Social Security system as it now stands will remain solvent. (It is perhaps not surprising that when President Bush sold Congress on his tax cuts, he did so by using growth projections far more optimistic than the ones he is now using for Social Security. The president is proving to be more dismal, one might say, than most economists.)

Of course, no one can say for sure that a quarter century or a half century hence, Social Security won't be in the bad shape the president fears; and a case can be made for doing something now to forestall problems later. But what we do should be designed to meet needs as they develop.

Progressive indexation is not well designed to address future uncertainties. It would improve Social Security's fiscal solvency most when real wages were increasing rapidly. But under those circumstances the system would in all likelihood remain fully solvent without interference. When real wages were stagnating, progressive indexation would do nothing to improve Social Security's condition. But those are precisely the circumstances under which the system would face the greatest danger of insolvency.

In short, progressive indexation is a mechanism that would "work" when we didn't need it and wouldn't work when we needed it most.

Granted, there is a middle ground where progressive indexation could in theory have some modest effect. But here we need to revisit the issue of individual accounts, because combining them with progressive indexation would almost certainly drain money out of the system, exacerbating the solvency problem or even undermining Social Security altogether.

Some background: The president has argued that individuals would be able to get a better return on their retirement accounts than the government does. On this he is simply wrong: no private firm can compete with the Social Security Administration in the efficiency with which it has administered its funds. In other countries that have privatized their social-welfare systems, benefits have fallen—in Britain, according to one estimate, by as much as 40 percent—as year after year transaction costs eat up what workers have put away.

Social Security does seem to give lower returns than private investment, for four reasons. First, it is safer. Second, there is a hidden tax in the system for middle- and upper-income workers: their benefits are reduced to help ensure that the poorest Americans do not retire in poverty. Third, most of the standard calculations of Social Security's rate of return do not take into account the value of survivors' and disability benefits. Because more than a third of those who currently collect benefits are not retired workers (among them nearly 12 million spouses and children of retired, disabled, or deceased workers, and 6 million disabled workers), ignoring these benefits significantly lowers estimates of returns. And fourth, some of the contributions of today's workers are used to finance the retirement of previous generations—this is the nature of a partial pay-as-you-go system.

Already Social Security is being portrayed as a bad deal, although it is not, particularly when one takes into account that no private investment can, for instance, insure one against inflation. (Only recently has the government provided inflation-protected securities, and the returns on Social Security contributions do not look unfavorable in comparison to the returns on these securities.) If it is a bad deal for some, that is not because it is inefficient but because it is redistributive. Under progressive indexation the benefits per dollar contribution of all but the poorest would be cut, thus—to follow the logic—making Social Security an even worse deal for all but the poorest Americans. One calculation has shown that by 2045 the rate of return for a worker earning $58,400 would be cut by more than 50 percent.

If progressive indexation and individual accounts both came to pass, middle- and upper-income Americans would look ahead at the likely consequences and vote with their feet. That is, they would divert as much money as possible out of Social Security and into their individual accounts. This might be heralded as a vote of confidence in the individual-account idea—and it would generate billions of dollars in commissions for managers of private assets. But it would erode, not enhance, the solvency of the Social Security system as a whole. Simply put, those who once contributed the most to the system would drop out to whatever extent they could.

Of course, a system of progressive indexation without individual accounts wouldn't have this outflow problem (though one can't imagine the administration's giving up private accounts). But even that arrangement would raise a serious question of equity.

Since the current system of wage indexation means that benefits increase with average wage levels, which normally increase far faster than prices, it allows workers to benefit from the productivity gains that usually drive wage increases. These productivity gains are usually not the result of anything individual workers do, but follow from innovation and investment.

A simple philosophical question: Should those who are fortunate enough to have high wages today, because productivity in general has increased, share some of their good fortune with workers of previous generations? The answer has fundamental implications for the nature of our society, particularly if wages increase rapidly. Assume, for instance, that real wages (taking inflation into account) increase by three percent annually, which means they double roughly every twenty years: the average wage of a forty-year-old worker will be approximately four times what an eighty-year-old earned back when he was forty. And under a system of individual accounts, or of price indexing, even if the eighty-year-old saved so avidly that his retirement income was the same as his average working income (which is seldom the case), he would have a quarter of the income of the forty-year-old worker. The current Social Security system goes a little way toward rectifying such inequalities. If our economy sees a three percent annual growth in real wages, our eighty-year-old retiree will have a share in the bounty: his Social Security payments will be four times as high as they would have been had the president's progressive-indexation plan been in place.

Under Bush's proposal there would be an enormous income gap across generations, on top of the already increasing income gaps that separate various groups in our society—the skilled and the unskilled, college graduates and high school dropouts. This gap would exist not because the aged failed to work hard while they worked, or even to save, but because they were born when they were born.

Those who advocate a switch to progressive indexation need to explain not only how it can possibly work, despite theory and evidence to the contrary, but also why the price of a more divided society is worth paying even if it does.

Most Popular

Should you drink more coffee? Should you take melatonin? Can you train yourself to need less sleep? A physician’s guide to sleep in a stressful age.

During residency, Iworked hospital shifts that could last 36 hours, without sleep, often without breaks of more than a few minutes. Even writing this now, it sounds to me like I’m bragging or laying claim to some fortitude of character. I can’t think of another type of self-injury that might be similarly lauded, except maybe binge drinking. Technically the shifts were 30 hours, the mandatory limit imposed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, but we stayed longer because people kept getting sick. Being a doctor is supposed to be about putting other people’s needs before your own. Our job was to power through.

The shifts usually felt shorter than they were, because they were so hectic. There was always a new patient in the emergency room who needed to be admitted, or a staff member on the eighth floor (which was full of late-stage terminally ill people) who needed me to fill out a death certificate. Sleep deprivation manifested as bouts of anger and despair mixed in with some euphoria, along with other sensations I’ve not had before or since. I remember once sitting with the family of a patient in critical condition, discussing an advance directive—the terms defining what the patient would want done were his heart to stop, which seemed likely to happen at any minute. Would he want to have chest compressions, electrical shocks, a breathing tube? In the middle of this, I had to look straight down at the chart in my lap, because I was laughing. This was the least funny scenario possible. I was experiencing a physical reaction unrelated to anything I knew to be happening in my mind. There is a type of seizure, called a gelastic seizure, during which the seizing person appears to be laughing—but I don’t think that was it. I think it was plain old delirium. It was mortifying, though no one seemed to notice.

His paranoid style paved the road for Trumpism. Now he fears what’s been unleashed.

Glenn Beck looks like the dad in a Disney movie. He’s earnest, geeky, pink, and slightly bulbous. His idea of salty language is bullcrap.

The atmosphere at Beck’s Mercury Studios, outside Dallas, is similarly soothing, provided you ignore the references to genocide and civilizational collapse. In October, when most commentators considered a Donald Trump presidency a remote possibility, I followed audience members onto the set of The Glenn Beck Program, which airs on Beck’s website, theblaze.com. On the way, we passed through a life-size replica of the Oval Office as it might look if inhabited by a President Beck, complete with a portrait of Ronald Reagan and a large Norman Rockwell print of a Boy Scout.

Why the ingrained expectation that women should desire to become parents is unhealthy

In 2008, Nebraska decriminalized child abandonment. The move was part of a "safe haven" law designed to address increased rates of infanticide in the state. Like other safe-haven laws, parents in Nebraska who felt unprepared to care for their babies could drop them off in a designated location without fear of arrest and prosecution. But legislators made a major logistical error: They failed to implement an age limitation for dropped-off children.

Within just weeks of the law passing, parents started dropping off their kids. But here's the rub: None of them were infants. A couple of months in, 36 children had been left in state hospitals and police stations. Twenty-two of the children were over 13 years old. A 51-year-old grandmother dropped off a 12-year-old boy. One father dropped off his entire family -- nine children from ages one to 17. Others drove from neighboring states to drop off their children once they heard that they could abandon them without repercussion.

Since the end of World War II, the most crucial underpinning of freedom in the world has been the vigor of the advanced liberal democracies and the alliances that bound them together. Through the Cold War, the key multilateral anchors were NATO, the expanding European Union, and the U.S.-Japan security alliance. With the end of the Cold War and the expansion of NATO and the EU to virtually all of Central and Eastern Europe, liberal democracy seemed ascendant and secure as never before in history.

Under the shrewd and relentless assault of a resurgent Russian authoritarian state, all of this has come under strain with a speed and scope that few in the West have fully comprehended, and that puts the future of liberal democracy in the world squarely where Vladimir Putin wants it: in doubt and on the defensive.

The same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.

You’ve likely seen the video before: a stream of kids, confronted with a single, alluring marshmallow. If they can resist eating it for 15 minutes, they’ll get two. Some do. Others cave almost immediately.

This “Marshmallow Test,” first conducted in the 1960s, perfectly illustrates the ongoing war between impulsivity and self-control. The kids have to tamp down their immediate desires and focus on long-term goals—an ability that correlates with their later health, wealth, and academic success, and that is supposedly controlled by the front part of the brain. But a new study by Alexander Soutschek at the University of Zurich suggests that self-control is also influenced by another brain region—and one that casts this ability in a different light.

“Well, you’re just special. You’re American,” remarked my colleague, smirking from across the coffee table. My other Finnish coworkers, from the school in Helsinki where I teach, nodded in agreement. They had just finished critiquing one of my habits, and they could see that I was on the defensive.

I threw my hands up and snapped, “You’re accusing me of being too friendly? Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Well, when I greet a colleague, I keep track,” she retorted, “so I don’t greet them again during the day!” Another chimed in, “That’s the same for me, too!”

Unbelievable, I thought. According to them, I’m too generous with my hellos.

When I told them I would do my best to greet them just once every day, they told me not to change my ways. They said they understood me. But the thing is, now that I’ve viewed myself from their perspective, I’m not sure I want to remain the same. Change isn’t a bad thing. And since moving to Finland two years ago, I’ve kicked a few bad American habits.

Modern slot machines develop an unbreakable hold on many players—some of whom wind up losing their jobs, their families, and even, as in the case of Scott Stevens, their lives.

On the morning of Monday, August 13, 2012, Scott Stevens loaded a brown hunting bag into his Jeep Grand Cherokee, then went to the master bedroom, where he hugged Stacy, his wife of 23 years. “I love you,” he told her.

Stacy thought that her husband was off to a job interview followed by an appointment with his therapist. Instead, he drove the 22 miles from their home in Steubenville, Ohio, to the Mountaineer Casino, just outside New Cumberland, West Virginia. He used the casino ATM to check his bank-account balance: $13,400. He walked across the casino floor to his favorite slot machine in the high-limit area: Triple Stars, a three-reel game that cost $10 a spin. Maybe this time it would pay out enough to save him.

A report will be shared with lawmakers before Trump’s inauguration, a top advisor said Friday.

Updated at 2:20 p.m.

President Obama asked intelligence officials to perform a “full review” of election-related hacking this week, and plans will share a report of its findings with lawmakers before he leaves office on January 20, 2017.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz said Friday that the investigation will reach all the way back to 2008, and will examine patterns of “malicious cyber-activity timed to election cycles.” He emphasized that the White House is not questioning the results of the November election.

Asked whether a sweeping investigation could be completed in the time left in Obama’s final term—just six weeks—Schultz replied that intelligence agencies will work quickly, because the preparing the report is “a major priority for the president of the United States.”

A professor of cognitive science argues that the world is nothing like the one we experience through our senses.

As we go about our daily lives, we tend to assume that our perceptions—sights, sounds, textures, tastes—are an accurate portrayal of the real world. Sure, when we stop and think about it—or when we find ourselves fooled by a perceptual illusion—we realize with a jolt that what we perceive is never the world directly, but rather our brain’s best guess at what that world is like, a kind of internal simulation of an external reality. Still, we bank on the fact that our simulation is a reasonably decent one. If it wasn’t, wouldn’t evolution have weeded us out by now? The true reality might be forever beyond our reach, but surely our senses give us at least an inkling of what it’s really like.